If you are interested in contributing, and learning more details about the technology stack of the tool and tests, please, visit the repository(opens new window).
# 1. Volunteer Technical Community Coordinator for ELevate Project
We are looking for a volunteer Technical Community Coordinator to figure out what the community needs & wants from the AlmaLinux ELevate project. One of your primary responsibilities is to provide direction to the AlmaLinux OS engineers to help decide "what is next for the ELevate Project". As a Technical Community Coordinator, you'll engage with the community and schedule meetings with the AlmaLinux OS team.
Duties and Responsibilities
Coordinate community and AlmaLinux ELevate team
Consult and help users with ELevate Project
Check all possible bug sources (bugs.almalinux.org, forum, GitHub) and escalate to the ELevate team if the bug requires coding
Provide direction to the AlmaLinux ELevate team according to the feedback from the community and volunteers
Schedule meetings with the community and AlmaLinux ELevate team
Use social media to understand the community's needs
To make AlmaLinux successful, we need the close involvement of the community
+members. We use our bug tracking system to find, track, and fix bugs. We
+encourage AlmaLinux users to help us by filling in bug-reports. You can track and
+discuss all bugs on bugs.almalinux.org(opens new window).
It makes no sense to talk about the importance of documentation, it is like
+an investment in the future. It can take time and energy, but it is
+essential to create full and comprehensive documentation together.
If you're seeking assistance in connecting with the appropriate individual or group, or if you're interested in guidance on becoming a contributor to AlmaLinux, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can contact our AlmaLinux Evangelist & PM, Pawel. He's available as pawel @ Mattermost chat(opens new window) or via email at PSUchanecki@almalinux.org.
AlmaLinux OS Foundation is starting the election of the Board of Directors. We have 7 open positions to fill.
+The election will start on September 4th, 2022.
At this stage we are looking for nominees for the Board of Director position. To be nominated you have to:
Be a member for at least 3 month by Sep 4th, 2022
Nominated by AlmaLinux member in good standing
To nominate someone email name & contact information of nominee to election2022@almalinux.org
The election starts on Sep 4th, 2022 and run until Sep 19th, 2022. If we don't reach quorum by Sep 19th, the election will stay open until quorum is reached.
To reach the quorum we need 50% of all members to vote.
Who can be nominated?
Any member in good standing, approved by the membership committee not less than 3 months before the election
Note: only members in good standing may nominate a potential board member, and each nominee must have a supporting member (you cannot nominate yourself).
My company is a member sponsor, can it nominate any company employee?
Yes, sponsors can nominate any company employee, but if the employee is terminated, or company sponsorship laps, the person will be required to step down from the role.
Can I nominate myself?
No, you must be nominated by a supporting member in good standing.
How can I nominate someone?
E-Mail name & contact information of nominee to election2022@almalinux.org
Who can vote?
Any Platinum, Gold, Silver, Contributor, User, Alumnus, or Mirror member in good standing, approved by the membership committee on or before August 23rd
How can I vote?
You will get a link to the voting page in your e-mail on the day voting starts.
How many votes does each member get?
Contributor, Alumnus, Mirror members: 1 vote each
Platinum sponsors: 50 votes each
Gold sponsors: 15 votes each
Silver sponsors: 5 votes each
What is the minimum number of votes you need to win?
At least 50% of our membership must vote in order for the election to be valid
Top 7 candidates with most votes will win
How many seats are on the board, and how many are vacant?
There are 7 seats on the board, 3 are vacant, and 4 are up for re-election.
How long does a director serve?
A term on the board is 3 years, unless the director leaves for any reasons.
What platform will you use for the elections?
Helios.
Who can be nominated?
Any member in good standing, approved by the membership committee not less than 3 months before the election
Note: only members in good standing may nominate a potential board member, and each nominee must have a supporting nominee
Can I nominate myself?
No, you must be nominated by a supporting member in good standing
How are vacancies handled in the event that a director leaves before the end of their term?
If a seat is vacated less than three months before a planned election, the board may fill the vacancy by a majority vote, or may choose to leave the seat vacant.
If a seat is vacated more than three months before a planned election, the board must trigger an election to fill the seat or appoint someone to fill the seat.
Are directors on the board compensated?
Board positions are not compensated positions
Is Director at the AlmaLinux OS Foundation a full-time position?
It is not a full-time position.
How is the Chair of the board of directors elected?
The chair is one of the officers elected at the first meeting of the board of directors, or as needed.
Will the current board members need to be re-elected?
Yes, at every term they need to be re-nominated and elected
Can two members of the board also work at the same company?
Sure! AlmaLinux OS, much like RHEL and CentOS Stream, is a general purpose operating system. If it works with RHEL, then it should work exactly the same on AlmaLinux. We are not 1:1 with CentOS Stream, as Stream may at points track well ahead of our releases.
In July of 2023, we announced(opens new window) that we were shifting our goal from being a downstream rebuild of RHEL to maintaining ABI compatibility with RHEL. For the AlmaLinux team that means that everything from software applications to kernel modules that work on RHEL will work on AlmaLinux, and if they don't we would consider that a bug.
We chose the name AlmaLinux in homage to the open source community around the world. Alma means soul in Spanish and other Latin languages. A vital part of Open Source is the passionate, diverse developer community, helping support the work of projects like the Linux kernel and really all open and free software. We believe that community is the soul of Linux, and Linux distribution users are indebted to the community's efforts.
# How is the community protected from future course changes?
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is a 501(c)(6) that was founded in March of 2021 to own and manage the AlmaLinux OS project. We have been involving the community since the beginning, and the governing board is chosen by members of the foundation. At all times, AlmaLinux OS will be free and open.
AlmaLinux OS is a community-owned and driven, stable, and secure Linux distribution. AlmaLinux is an opportunity for us to provide a Linux distribution that serves the broader community and which powers the computing needs of a wide range of users. Whether you are running a particle accelerator unlocking the mysteries of the universe, a Top500 HPC cluster, an enterprise running your database workloads, or a developer working on open source projects, AlmaLinux is for you.
AlmaLinux puts out new releases--fast. We typically release with a day or two of upstream RHEL releases. Updates are generally within 24 hours.
Our governance is under a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization to facilitate our objectives of being open, transparent and participatory. Community members who apply for membership in the foundation (for free) and are able to vote on the governing board of the AlmaLinux project and on critical decisions. There is no "ownership," and no controlling shareholders or interests. The foundation is by the members, for the members. All board meeting minutes are published and shared, including financial positions.
# What architectures and platforms do you support?
AlmaLinux currently supports four architectures - x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x - providing full parity with upstream. In addition, we provide a wide range of other images and repositories: traditional ISOs, cloud and container images, live media, WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux, and Raspberry Pi.
AlmaLinux provides a commitment to security updates and bug fixes for a period of 10 years for each major version. Moreover, AlmaLinux provides Errata, public OVAL streams, OpenSCAP and SCAP Workbench packages, including the availability of the official CIS Benchmark for AlmaLinux(opens new window). AlmaLinux has SBOM integrated into our build pipeline, facilitating software supply chain security.
# Where does AlmaLinux get package sources? How AlmaLinux is built?
The process in general looks like this:
We clone the upstream sources from the CentOS git repositories. These are the same source that Red Hat uses to build their packages.
De-branding: any trademarks are replaced at this point, and the .alma postfix is added to the end of the modified packages' "Release" field to distinguish our packages from upstream ones. You can also check the Modified packages page for more details.
TIP
Note: Most RPMs are rebuilt directly from the sources. The rebranding is required when any of the text/visual displays says Red Hat or RHN license manager enforcements.
# How do I migrate a single host from CentOS to AlmaLinux?
AlmaLinux developed a migration tool(opens new window) to make it simple to migrate to AlmaLinux from other Linux distributions including CentOS and CentOS Stream.
You can read more details and find guide steps on the Migration wiki page.
# How do I migrate an entire fleet of servers from CentOS to AlmaLinux?
Since AlmaLinux is compatible with RHEL®, your applications and services should be completely interoperable. You can rapidly migrate any number of servers using AlmaLinux-deploy(opens new window).
The AlmaLinux community has developed the ELevate project as an initiative to support migrations between a major version of RHEL-derivatives. It uses the Leapp utility(opens new window) and a few patches(opens new window) to support migration from CentOS are used to perform the upgrade.
# I found a bug in RHEL; can I contribute the bug fix to AlmaLinux?
Since AlmaLinux is binary compatible with RHEL, most of the bugs users might encounter would be part of of RHEL. When a bug is encountered, it should be confirmed in CentOS Stream or (if possible) RHEL. If bugs are confirmed to be part of the upstream, AlmaLinux recommends following an "upstream first" approach to fix these bugs by submitting them to CentOS Stream(opens new window). This is the contribution path to get the bug fix into RHEL, which will in turn be rebuilt into AlmaLinux.
You can file AlmaLinux specific bugs on the bugs.almalinux.org(opens new window) providing all the necessary information about an issue and reproducing steps.
# How can I request a package be added to AlmaLinux?
Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Live Media is a way to try AlmaLinux on your computer without installing it to the hard drive. You can run it from a USB or DVD to preview and for system rescue needs. Images support both BIOS and UEFI, including Secure Boot mode.
dd: Start the dd command to write DVD/CD iso image.
+if=AlmaLinux-8-x86_64-Live-GNOME-Mini-beta-1.iso: path to the input file.
+of=/dev/sdc : path to destination USB disk/stick.
+status=progress: display a progress bar while writing the image to the USB stick such as /dev/sdb.
+That’s all! You now have ready Live AlmaLinux on a USB stick.
WARNING
This example is for AlmaLinux 8. Don't forget to replace 8 version with 9 to work with AlmaLinux 9 image.
Windows:
For Windows OS there is a helpful free and open-source application - Rufus(opens new window).
Open the application, choose your target USB, ISO you need to burn, press start - and Live OS is ready to run.
macOS:
The cross-platform tool balenaEtcher(opens new window) is used to write images on macOS. It is simple too. Open balenaEtcher, choose the image and the USB, press Flash.
Mirrors are extremely important to provide a fast and reliable
+infrastructure, and we are very grateful to people and organizations that
+help us with this. The current list of public mirrors can be found on the
+mirrors.almalinux.org(opens new window) website.
You can create a public AlmaLinux mirror in a few easy steps:
Make sure that you have enough free space: 500GB per major version is the suggested minimum. As there are currently two supported major versions (8 and 9) the recommended minimum storage space is 1TB.
Optional but recommended
Use updated version of rsync with xxhash support.
xxhash provides a superior hashing algorithm to rsync which lightens the load on the source and destination
+servers.
+We maintain an up-to-date version
+of rsync in the AlmaLinux backports repository. To use this repository on EL8 and EL9 distros:
The official tier0 rsync mirrors are in Atlanta, GA, USA, and Seattle, WA, USA. We use geolocation-based DNS steering to send your traffic to the closest tier0 mirror. If your mirror is not in the United States or you are
+otherwise seeing suboptimal speed from this source we recommend performing the initial sync from a mirror
+close to you. Make sure that your cron syncs from the official mirror, however.
Create a cron task to sync it periodically (we recommend updating the
+mirror every 3 hours):
Our mirrorlist URL tries to serve the best mirror to a client based on IPinfo geolocation data
+so having accurate IPinfo data ensures the best possible experience for users.
Fork the github.com/AlmaLinux/mirrors(opens new window)
+repository and create a pull request that will add a YAML file describing
+your mirror to the mirrors.d directory.
+You can use the official AlmaLinux repo file(opens new window)
+as an example. Your mirror does not have to provide all the protocols
+that our main mirror provides, but either HTTP or HTTPS is required. Format of a mirror's config is described below.
+Also, you can validate your config to use some JSON online validator using that JSON schema(opens new window) and converting your config to JSON.
---
+name: <domain name of a mirror, e.g. almalinux.mirror.link>
+cloud_type: <azure|aws. It'll be required if a mirror is located in AWS/Azure cloud>
+address:
+ http: <http URL to a mirror, e.g. http://almalinux.mirror.link/almalinux>
+ https: <https URL to a mirror, e.g. https://almalinux.mirror.link/almalinux>
+ rsync: <rsync URL to a mirror, e.g. rsync://almalinux.mirror.link/almalinux>
+ ftp: <ftp URL to a mirror, e.g. ftp://almalinux.mirror.link/almalinux>
+update_frequency: <update frequency of a mirror, e.g. 1h>
+sponsor: <Name of a mirror's sponsor/holder, e.g. Some company name>
+sponsor_url: <URL of a mirror's sponsor/holder, e.g. http://some.company.name>
+email: <e-mail of a mirror's sponsor/holder, e.g. admin@some.company.name>
+geolocation:
+ continent: <name of a continent, e.g. North America; than field is not mandatory>
+ country: <two-letter name of a country, e.g. US>
+ state_province: <name of a province, e.g. New York>
+ city: <name of a city, e.g. New York>
+private: <true|false. A mirror is available in some local network if the param is true>
+monopoly: <true|false. The mirrors list contains only this private mirror for a suitable client if param is true>
+# The list will be required if a mirror is local or cloud.
+# It contains subnets behind which located a private mirror.
+# Also, it can be string and contains URL which returns json list with subnets
+subnets:
+ - <network mask>
+# That parameter can specify ASN which is maintained by a mirror is located in cloud
+# It can be number or list of numbers:
+# asn: 40162
+# or
+# asn:
+# - 41222
+# - 91213
+# or
+# asn: [12345, 98765]
+asn: <ASN number or list of ASN numbers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)>.
+# The list will be required if a mirror is located in Azure/AWS cloud
+cloud_regions:
+ - <cloud_region of Azure/AWS, e.g. australiacentral2>
+...
+
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is 501(c)(6) non-profit organization. It owns all assets related to AlmaLinux OS. It is governed by a set of Bylaws(opens new window).
The goals of a Community-owned operating system needs to include transparency in all things. If you ever have a question, request, or need that isn't being satisfied through the available channels, you may always reach out to any member of the board for assistance. As of January 10th, 2023 the board has adopted a Code of Ethics(opens new window).
As of September 20, 2022, the foundation has a seven board directors.
Daniel Pearson(opens new window) - Daniel is a current Director at AlmaLinux and is the CEO of KnownHost, LLC (promoted from COO during the election window), a current AlmaLinux Gold Sponsor, serves on the AlmaLinux OS Foundation membership committee.
Moshe Bar(opens new window) - Moshe is a current Director at AlmaLinux and is the CEO of CodeNotary, Inc., an AlmaLinux Gold Sponsor
Igor Seletskiy has stepped down from the Board of Directors, and the Board has elected benny Vasquez to replace him.
The board will be expanded to up to 13 directors (as new Platinum members arrive) to make sure that no single company controls the AlmaLinux OS Foundation.
Need to be "assigned" as belonging to AlmaLinux OS Foundation, need to come up with signing ceremony, who controls it
Q3 2023: Need to come up with rules for holding keys
EV certificate for Secure Boot
We've been on an AlmaLinux owned cert since 8.8/9.2
DONE
Logo License for the foundation
Transfer documents, and initial acquisition document uploaded into a Logo Transfer folder, transfer document signed
DONE - all assets in the Google drive
# Minutes of AlmaLinux OS Foundation Board Meetings
The Board of Directors meets monthly on the second Tuesday of the month. At each meeting, the board works to keep minutes so that they can be approved as part of that meeting and shared immediately after the meeting completes. In the event that there is little to discuss, the Chair of the board may opt to cancel a meeting, allowing the board to meet every other month.
In September of 2021, the Board of Directors opened up membership applications(opens new window) for all the members of the AlmaLinux community wishing to participate in the future of AlmaLinux. The Board also ratified the Membership Committee Governance, and appointed a selection of existing Foundation Members to participate in the Membership Committee.
The Membership Committee meets on the third Tuesday of every month for 30 minutes as long as there are applicants to be reviewed, and reviews as many applications as the time allows.
As of Oct 11, 2021 the Membership Committee consists of:
Daniel Pearson, COO of KnownHost, and Current Chair of the Membership Committee